Restoring services targeting sexual and reproductive health during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

The ongoing coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic continues to be a public health emergency of global concern. The findings of the studies have reported that owing to the pandemic, the delivery of essential and emergency sexual and reproductive health-care services has been significantly jeopardized. This has resulted in a considerable rise in the number of episodes of gender-based violence, with the situation being grimmer in settings with poor health systems or among people who are being exposed to some form of humanitarian emergencies. This calls for an indispensable need to improve the delivery of sexual and reproductive health-related services to all women, especially those living in low-resource settings. To conclude, the COVID-19 pandemic has accounted for the disruption of almost all types of health-care services and the same thing has been observed with regard to the delivery of sexual and reproductive health-care needs of women. It is the need of the hour to bridge the existing gap and give adequate priority to the special needs of women, which very much determine their quality of life.